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Friday, February 15, 2013

2013 Oscar Preview: Best Make Up and Hairstyling

NOMINEES

Hitchcock

Les Miserables

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

MY THOUGHTS

Truthfully, I want to write about this category because of the snubs versus the actual selections. Like I said in my introduction piece, I have not seen any of the films that were nominated. However, this is one of the few categories in which you do not need to see the movie to judge the nominee's effectiveness. I have seen stills and shots from all of these films and how different characters look to truly judge the "performance"

HITCHCOCK: While Anthony Hopkins in real life looks absolutely nothing like Alfred Hitchcock, the make up and design team did a great job with Hopkins. Really, everyone looks a lot like the actual actors they're playing (Look at Vivain Leigh and still of Scarlett Johansson. Remarkable)

I was reading an article in the Chicago Tribune late in 2012 after Cloud Atlas was released about how atrocious some make up in movies can be (the article cited Cloud Atlas and 2011's J. Edgar as examples of horrific make up) and spoke to the design team of Hitchcock. The team saw J. Edgar and decided they absolutely did not want to be mentioned in the same breath as the Clint Eastwood picture. They said they tested and re-tested and re-tested again Anthony Hopkins until they got it down perfectly. They said their first attempt made Hopkins look like the famed director perfectly, but when they tested him on camera, it came out horribly. I think all of their testing has paid off.

LES MISERABLES: When you think of Les Mis (the movie) you don't really think of the make up. I understand that the actors had to look poor and dirty and grimy and an old Hugh Jackman looks pretty good, but I don't know that it goes so far to say it deserves an Oscar nomination.

THE HOBBIT: From The Lord of the Rings movies we know what an amazing job that Peter Jackson and his team can do to create this new world; however, they took a giant step back with The Hobbit. As a promotional campaign, the studio released posters of all of the different dwarfs and they look terrible. The dwarfs look so cartoony and childish that it feels like when Nintendo came out with the goofy Nintendo Cube after the amazing N64. If you want to see dwarfs done right see Snow White and the Huntsman (although don't actually sit through the film- it's not that good)

IF I HAD AN OSCAR VOTE

Lincoln

Looper

Men In Black 3

WINNERS

WHAT SHOULD WIN (OSCAR FIELD): Hitchcock

WHAT SHOULD WIN (ENTIRE FIELD): Lincoln

WHAT WILL WIN: Hitchcock Les Miserables

FINAL THOUGHTS

How the hell was Lincoln NOT nominated for Best Make Up?! Lincoln received the most Oscar nominations with 12 and yet one of them was NOT for Best Make Up? The poster of Daniel Day-Lewis alone should be enough to warrant an Oscar nomination. DDL looks EXACTLY like Abraham Lincoln. He doesn't look close to Abraham Lincoln, he looks EXACTLY like Abraham Lincoln. For all of my problems with the film, the characters look was not one of them. If Hitchcock gets a nomination because Anthony Hopkins looks like a good Hitchcock impersonator, then Lincoln absolutely deserved to have been nominated.